I Don't Need Anyone
by YogaForever
Summary: Through clenched teeth and a mind that didn’t believe it he only whispered four last words. “I don’t need anyone.” Scourge fic


"_Yeah . . . you_

_You miserable father_

_The one who ignored me for half of my life_

_Now I can't even look at you_

_Why, why, why?_"

-N. Sixx, "Dead Man's Ballet"

**I Don't Need Anyone**

_By: Sweet Valentine Vampire_

Why was it, that sometimes, when you knew you've done something good, something that you're supposed to benefit from, you just can't see it that way?

This feeling of non-content was unnerving, like learning for weeks to speak a new language and then to pick up the pencil, ready to mark the answers on a sheet for a linguistics test and realizing you couldn't translate it . . .

Scourge trembled lightly without noticing, his mind was racing and from his eyes tears had streamed uselessly. His face was dried now, but stained - like a scar were the hollow rivers of once-tears upon his pallor face.

His shoes clicked off the stony floors in what otherwise was a cold silence, like a whisper that told him he screwed up, that he was a screw up. Because, otherwise, he'd be able to translate this feeling inside - wouldn't he?

When he passed the ostentatious painting in the haggard old castle hall he felt his feet come to a numb halt beneath him. He pushed his sunglasses from his steely eyes and cast an insane stare that narrowed itself into a murderous glare at the painting.

The frayed oils on the canvas hanging upon a dusty wall seemed to taunt him. The picture was grand - of an older and frighteningly familiar man donned in cape and top hat, cane in hand. That bastard in the picture smiled as if proud, as if he wasn't just ignoring a kid who then didn't deserve it.

The picture held an image Scourge hated.

His father.

"Who do you think you are?" He accused the man in the old drawing, his eyes narrowed and he looked over his shoulder defensively, raising a hand as if to slap the frame from the wall. Realizing his word choice, he corrected, ". . . _were_?"

He turned on his heel quickly and lowered his head, the dark halls cast eery shadows across a crazy little boy's face.

"Get off your high horse already, old man." Scourge growled through clenched teeth, hands closing into fists at his sides. "You're not as good as you think you are."

The smiling man in the picture, of course, said nothing. He just continued to smile and stare into the distance.

"Even now . . ." Scourge breathed heavily, clenching and unclenching restless hands. He looked into those distant eyes as if searching them for something. " . . . You can't look me in the eye." Scourge rose his chin to cast the painting a cold glare. "Am I really so much of a disappointment, old man? Is _that_ it?"

And still, the painting didn't respond.

Of course, it's distant eyes didn't look into Scourge's own blood-lusting ice blue eyes.

Never, did the man in the still life acknowledge the trembling little boy that stood in front of him.

"I didn't even exist as far as you were concerned!" Scourge screamed, feeling a heat rise to his face - rage and tears mixed together in a flow too painful to describe, a pain ached in his chest and something called longing pulled at the back of his mind. "Why didn't you acknowledge me?"

Scourge blinked and swallowed, staring at the picture - waiting for it to answer.

"Why won't you say something . . . ?" He whispered and then he became wild again - screaming and crying all at once. "Why have you _never_ said anything to me!? Do you really_ hate_ me that much!?"

"What did I ever do to you?" He demanded, pulling his fists close to his body. "I was just a kid - I still had time! I still had time to learn . . ." why did he think of Sonic? "I could have been a hero!"

And he choked on his next words, so ragged was his voice that he didn't know who was screaming anymore. Wasn't he supposed to be confident? "I didn't have to destroy your pathetic little world that was _so much more important _than **loving **me!"

And now Scourge panted from exhaustion, he glanced quickly at his blood-stained hands and realized that water lay on the floor from the leaky roof. Inside the murky puddle's reflection he could see an image of the past - who he used to be. A little boy who just wanted his father to read to him, and to listen, and to love . . . .

"NOBODY LOVES ME!" He kicked at the puddle, destroyed his reflection. His head whipped back up to the painting. "And I don't blame them," Scourge gave out a taunted kid's laugh, fake and crazy. "I hate me, too!" Scourge clenched his hands again and took steps closer to the painting.

He jabbed a finger hard into the painting, feeling good that the thing cracked under his pressure, and now he screamed at the painting, "you didn't have to have me! I'd have been happier had you not had me!"

Scourge stepped away because it hurt so much to lay out these painful truths. He put his hands close to his chest and breathed in shallow air, his eyes were tearing up again.

"Why didn't you just kill me when I was born?" He asked in a hollow, haggard whisper. His hands trembled over his scars and the tears broke free. "'Cause, ignorin' me and pretendin' I wasn't there all my life . . ." he was crying and barely choked out the mangled end of sentence. "Was like killing me slowly, dad."

"And now," the burbling crazy laugh came out again but his broken tone remained, hands clenched jacket lapels. "I hope your happy, Dad. I'm dead."

Just like an abandoned child would, Scourge lost all strength and fell to his knees. He looked up at the painting and his hands fell to his thighs. "I'm dead 'cause I'm livin' and I don't care . . ." he shook his head and more tears came. "I don't care about anything anymore. I just wanna prove you wrong," he glared through tears. "I'm not useless. I'm the most powerful thing this world will ever know. I've conquered the world, Dad. And I ain't stopping there . . ."

Scourge looked down to the stony floors and like the bricks his heart was. Cold, lifeless and built from stone.

"I'm gonna conquer the whole danged multiverse. I'm gonna make you sorry you ignored me." Scourge glared up at the proud man. "So get off your high horse, old man. There's places in Hell for guys like you." He laughed again, this time brokenly and without feeling. "And when I'm done, when I've become the best there ever was . . . I'm gonna join you there in Hell. 'Cause that's where the bad kids go. When I'm there, I ain't never letting you live down all the years of pain you put me through."

Scourge exhaled and the sound was uneven. He bowed his head and screwed his eyes shut. He shook his head to stop them, but more tears slid away.

"What's wrong with you?" He asked no one, just a painting, a shadow of his father. "Why couldn't you love me?" He smiled and looked up at the painting with pleading blue eyes. "And what the hell is wrong with me?"

His hands were on the ground, bracing his body from completely falling down as the sobs wracked his body hard.

"Why . . ." he choked and shook his head. "Why didn't I understand you didn't love me? I would've saved myself so much trouble had I gotten over the fact that you . . . that you . . ." he sobbed again. "You hate me."

"YOU HATE ME!" He screamed out so loud it hurt his throat.

Scourge jumped to his feet and tore down the painting with all his might, started ripping it into pieces - just like with the real thing. He didn't care. He wanted to bring his father so much pain. He wanted his father to feel what he felt. Because, now, Scourge couldn't feel at all. He didn't care about anyone or anything except getting his twisted form of revenge.

"I will be the best," Scourge promised as he threw the last remnants of the painting down. He panted as he turned away from the pile of destruction.

He threw blood-stained hands into jacket pockets, he tilted his head and let the sunglasses fall over his frosted, hateful blue eyes. He bared his teeth darkly and slouched down the hall. Through clenched teeth and a mind that didn't believe it he only whispered four last words.

"I don't need anyone."

**The End**

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A/N: Hello, and thank you for reading my very first fan fiction. As you have already figured out, it was about Scourge the Hedgehog and his troubled (?) Past.

The inspiration for this story came from reading the Sonic the Hedgehog back-up story "Father and Son" written by the brilliant Ian Flynn. I do not, at this moment, recall from what issue this story was printed. That story "Father and Son" made me truly think, "huh, is there a reason Scourge is the way he is?"

After all, children behave in varying ways all depending on how they were raised. And how much they were loved and regarded. Every human (human being used to refer to emotional states rather than species, considering I'm referring to Sonic characters) being needs emotional support in the forms of love, attention and comforts. One living without these things can sometimes become violent and even apathetic to other human beings.

The quote I use is from a beautiful song titled "Dead Man's Ballet" by the amazingly talented band Sixx: A. M.. Give it a listen and understand my inspiration.

Again, thanks for reading and please leave a review.

. . . Or a flame, ouch.

Input of any kind will be appreciated.

Sincerely,

Sweet Valentine Vampire


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